


Secrets Falling

by SapphicDreams



Category: Original Work
Genre: Canon Queer Character, Crime Fighting, Detectives, F/F, Gen, Nonbinary Character, OT5 Friendship, Original Fiction, Original Universe, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Paranormal, Police, Surreal, Suspense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 18:30:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15419004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphicDreams/pseuds/SapphicDreams
Summary: Katherine Rodriguez is an up and coming Police Detective who was been repressed and held back both by her ethnicity and her gender. She has had to work twice as hard as her peers to get to where she is. After a fire fight, things seem to stop making sense in Kate’s life, as if someone were only trying to mess with her head. If it was only that, then why does Kate feel like someone’s watching her everywhere she goes? Things couldn’t get any weirder… except when Griffon – Her partner –  starts revealing details of their past.





	Secrets Falling

The tall woman's chest heaves up and down furiously. Strands of her long hair escape from the tail they were once restrained to, sticking to her face. Her heart beating hard in her chest. Everything happened so quickly. God, this wasn't supposed to turn out like this. This wasn't going the way they had imagined it, it had been an ordinary call, something about disturbances, but when they arrived at the location everything went downhill.

The police car strolls down a quiet street, not a soul to be seen. At the turn near a corner, a dark tall figure comes from an alleyway. He stands there. Long, dark, greasy hair in his face, shoulders tight and pushed forward. His clothes all dark colors and ripped at places, he stares, doesn't move at all when the car parks near him. However, as soon as her partner and she got off the police car, there were gunshots. Multiple bullets hitting the car, some seemed to ricochet off the streets. It was chaos, it happened so fast, blurred her senses. Kate gets into cover barely in time and reaches for her Glock 22. Her partner, although, hadn't been so lucky. He screamed in pain, hands shakily move and cover his side. Blood taints a scarlet red in his shirt, oozes through his fingers, droplets hitting the pavement. He had been shot in the side, and now only offered a desperate look to Kate and a strangulated noise from the back of his throat.

Kate's quick to act, radios in reinforcements, informs them of the shots and the downed officer. Now her legs were moving as fast as she could, chasing after the man that had pulled the trigger on her and James. 

The alleyway she had chased him into was dark, long and menacing. Just a gap between two old buildings, abandoned now. It's cold and uninviting. A nauseating smell of urine emanating from the slimy walls decorated with old forgotten graffiti. Broken bottles, needles, and other things scuttled underfoot as Kate runs through its length. Kate hastily jumps over a fence, landing with a loud thud on the street. The brightness and cold fresher air of the street are a welcoming contrast from that of the alley.

The sound of the bullets and the image of her partner falling helplessly to the ground replayed in her head again and again. She tries to focus but everything seemed like a blur and after a while of chasing the suspect, her legs give out on her. Kate bends over, taking deep fast breaths. 

This was going to require a hell of a lot of paperwork when she returned to the station. 

Kate's walk back to her police car seemed eternal. She couldn't stop seeing her partner fall to the ground, the pleading in his eyes for her to do something, anything. When she gets to the scene everything is still a mess. There's a handful of officers gathering evidence. Blood splattered on the floor and inside her car. Holes pierced through the metal of the door and a shattered window. The blinding lights of an ambulance parked nearby pull her towards them. She spots James, who seemed badly hurt. 

"Hey, kid. You better visit me in the hospital after this mess is over with." His voice is a low sort of strangled out groan, and when he asks her to visit him, there's laughter but it's dry and forced out. Kate can only promise she will.

This was worse than she had originally thought. "Well… fuck" is the only thing that Kate can mutter out before she's being surrounded by her superiors. All interrogating her, screaming about why there was a badly injured cop, and asking where she had gone. Yeah, she wasn't having the best start of the week ever. 

Evening rolls by and after mountains of paperwork and interrogations of her interpretation of what had happened earlier that day, Kate is finally free to go. Her body is begging for rest but her mind is full of questions, of "what ifs" and "maybes".  Kate was just aching for a good coffee and night's rest. 

She walks out the police station, pulling on a black helmet while she did, and heading towards the back of the station, where her most prized possession was at. An Aprilia Tuono V4R. The silver decorated with bits of golden of its frame making a wonderful contrast to the matte black of the rest of it. Kate swings a leg over it, kicks up the kickstand and slides the key in the ignition, turns it. Her fingers move almost from muscle memory as she slides down the engine cut off switch and her other hand presses down on the clutch. Her thumb moves to the starter button and the sound of the waking engine is music to Kate's ears. Her wrist moves and the engine roars in response. Eager to leave, she speeds out the parking lot drives through an almost empty city. 

Soft pink rays from a neon sign with curved letters very faintly light up the street, over the entrance of a small shop which reads "Griff's Café". Kate can't help but smile at the words, she steps forward, pushes the door open with her forearm and the sound of a bell singing draws her out of her thoughts. The café has something to it that Kate couldn't really explain. A certain… coziness. Warm, for all the cold fall winds outside its big picture windows. Soft fuzzy light comes from one of the corners, another neon sign. This one displayed "Everything will be alright". Plants hung from anywhere they could, the soft green hues a welcoming contrast from the light brown of the brick walls. Art pieces hang behind the counter – all signed by one "Griffon Mitchell" in a type of cursive where the letters seemed jumbled together, big and small, kind of bubbly but also seemed drawn out, almost lazily spread across the bottom of the canvas. There weren't many people left in the small place, except for the regulars, mixed in with what seemed like a writer and an artist chatting about some project.

The smell of the place was a welcoming distraction, fresh coffee being brewed and warm pastries. It made Kate hum in delight. She walks inside, her footsteps seemed heavy, her body was tired and her mind racing. She just wanted the day over with. So Kate takes a seat, stretches out across the table, almost sprawling her upper half on it. She groans and sits back up, rolls her shoulders and takes one of the menus from the table. 

Kate hadn't even begun to read when there's a feeling of warm hands on her shoulders, which slowly move down her arms and it makes her jump, makes her instinctively move twitching fingers towards a non-existent holster on the side of her hip. 

"Calm down, it's just me" a voice, low and smoky, brushes against the shell of Kate's ear. A shiver runs down her spine and she takes a deep shaky breath. 

"You know you can't sneak up on me like this!" Kate's voice is a dire contrast to the other person's. It's barely audible and it's taut. It sparks fear in the person who was embracing her. They slide off of Kate's body, make their way to the other side of the table and sits in front of her. 

"What's wrong? What happened?" 

"Griffon, it's-" Kate's voice cuts off. She bows her head and lets out the breath she had been holding. Her hands play nervously with each other on the table. 

"Listen, Griff. It's… It's nothing really, at least nothing out of the ordinary. Can we talk about it later? At yours?"

Griffon nods, their loose curly hair slightly bounces, Kate's eyes barely catch a glimpse of it but it makes her smile. Griffon's tattooed hands slide across the table, take Kate's in theirs. They lean forward and give Kate a big toothy smile. 

"So, I assume you'll be wanting your usual?"

"Please, yes… lots of sugar. You know how I am." 

Griffon laughs at this, and it's blissful, bright and full of joy. 

"Yes, I know. I'm convinced your incredibly high intake of sugar is the cause of you being so sweet!" Griffon slides out the chair and moves to leave, but not before stealing away a peck from an offended Kate who was left stuttering about how she's not sweet.

Kate watches, intently, as Griffon leaves. She thinks she could never get tired of watching her, drinking in her image and letting the butterflies that dance around in her chest take over her. Griffon is beautiful, really. Kate can't think of much to describe them, they always seem to leave her speechless. Their black skin is decorated with tattoos that run from their shoulder to the very tip of their fingertips. Their hair kept back, stopped from rushing to their face by a grey bandanna that keeps the heavy dark brown curls in place. As if knowing that Kate had been staring, Griffon turns to face her, and walks a couple of steps backwards. They raise their eyebrow at Kate and laugh, shaking their head before turning back and heading to the counter. The small movement gave Kate enough time to appreciate their partner's features. Honey eyes framed by large round glasses. Freckles decorate their cheeks, and a shine of gold pulls Kate's eyes to Griffon's septum ring. Kate finally turns back to her table, resting her head on her fists and patiently waiting for her coffee. 

* * *

 

Hours slide by, the fading sun casting its last orange rays, which hungrily seek the warmth of a body before twilight comes and steals them away. Customers come and go, some in just one quick fleeting trip, their voices rushed, body shifting weight from one foot to the other, impatience and the need to be elsewhere tugging them away. Others stay, share coffee with their loved ones, their smiles and laughter warming up the shop unlike anything else.

Eventually, there's only silence and everyone except for Kate has left, so she stands, leaves the mug at the counter, then closes up the shop. Being at the café felt like it had revitalized her slightly, in some way, but her mind still replayed the scene from earlier that day, again and again. She couldn't shake it out no matter what she did and it was frankly beginning to annoy her. It wasn't foreign to her – the risks they took every day as cops or detectives. This situation wasn't as bad as it could have been, yet there was a feeling that was haunting her, like a pair of eyes had followed her all day, watched her every move, and studied her actions in silence to soon use them against her. It made her feel uneasy, insecure. It made her unconsciously move nervous hands to where her holster would be at. 

The ride with Griffon back to her place had been a quiet, tense one. Griffon's hands curled around her waist, their body shifting with her in every turn they took. Eventually, they get there and walk inside, Kate eager to lay down, relax, to let herself loosen up. 

"So let me get this right, then…" Griffon is sprawled on the couch, their hands toying with a skull they had been craving in their free time. Kate is sitting on the floor with a bottle of beer cuddled between her legs. 

"You got there, because of a supposed, what was it? Disruption call?"

Kate takes a swig of her beer, groans and shakes her head. "No, not a disruption. A disturbance."

"Right… and never did it occur to you that the weird dude who didn't move at all and – from the way you described him – sounded very shady, was the one causing these disturbances."

"In my field of work you see a lot of weird, shady looking people who don't always turn out bad" Kate shrugs, downs the last remaining beer at the bottom of the bottle and makes a face when the warm, now almost sour tasting liquid slides down her throat. 

Griffon cocks an eyebrow at this. How could someone look suspicious if they were innocent? Surely if no one was hiding anything they wouldn't have a reason to look suspicious, right? They sigh and rub the bridge of their nose.

"So anyway, your boss gave you a hell of a time and you have to be there…?” 

Kate is starting to grow annoyed, she would prefer just forget about the day's events instead of going over them, but she shakes her head slightly to Griffon.

“No, he said I should take a day off. I was interrogated, yes, filled out some paperwork… but they’re going to study the video from my body cam, and want me to take a day off to lower my stress and retell the events again later.”

"Right… And, what happened with this guy, Joh-"

"James."

"Right, James. Is he alright? You didn't tell me much after the whole him being shot." 

"Yeah, last he told me was that I better visit him in the hospital…"

"Well?" Griffon swings their legs off the couch, sits up and stares at Kate, an eyebrow raised to her in question.

"I… haven't gone yet."

Griffon throws the small skull at Kate, which bounces off her shoulder and onto the rug. They scoff loudly, almost not believing that Kate hadn't visited her longtime partner before going to her café. Kate takes the skull and throws it back to her, the skull missing entirely and landing on the sofa next to her. Griffon cackles at this "And you call yourself a sharpshooter!" 

"Hey!" Kate's voice is full of mock offense. "It's because I was grossed out, you and your weird skull collecting and carving hobbies."

Griffon's entire body language changes suddenly, she lowers her voice slightly, it's soft and full of concern.

"You should visit him, you know. He's been your partner for what, two years now? Besides… now with this opportunity you were telling me about… about becoming a detective, well, you might not see him around as much if you take it." 

Kate's memory flies back to almost a week ago, she had been called into the chief's office. Nervous as she was about going in, she played confident, while reviewing the week's past events trying to figure out what stupid thing she had done and was going to get chewed out over. It had come as a surprise when she sat down and the chief, in his loud grumbling voice, offered her a position as a detective. Kate didn't really know how to react at the time, as tempting as the offer sounded, she liked being a plain cop, working in the streets and feeling like maybe she was making a difference. There was also the fact that she had to take an exam to evaluate if she would be a capable detective. The chief noticed her uneasiness, talked to her about how she was a good cop who had shown great skill in crime solving and would possibly make an excellent detective. Kate voiced her opinion, told the chief how she loved being in the streets and patrolling, as hard as that could be. So in response, the chief gave her one week to think about her decision, informed her that even if she said yes, she would still have some time before taking the exam, and there was, of course, the six month training she had to go through. She could stay a beat cop or raise in rank, and the week that was granted to Kate was almost over, nonetheless, she still hadn't reached a decision.

A loud, exaggerated groan comes from Kate's throat, she throws herself back onto the rug and sighs loudly. "Fine!" Her hands move up to her face and she rubs her eyes, messing up the eyeliner she had so carefully applied that morning. "But tomorrow, I've had enough shit today to last me a week, I just want to sleep." 


End file.
